Robert W. Plaster
College of Business

This multi-million dollar building features state-of-the-art classrooms and a beautiful new auditorium. The building also houses the Center for Faith, Mission, & Catholic Education, and the Zembrodt Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. It is a testament on the part of the university, making this huge commitment to the College of Business. It’s exciting for the students that most of the business classes will be in the new academic center.

We’ve done quite a bit in terms of programming and curriculum changes in the last three years. We have a Bachelor of Science in Finance. We have a newly created major in Marketing. We have been approved to have a Bachelor of Science in Hospitality Management – that’s a very hot, new discipline. We are moving into concentrations and courses on data analytics and sustainability.

We have a minor in entrepreneurship, supported by the Center named after the Zembrodt family, for entrepreneurship and innovation. Students go to competitions to share new ideas and we support competitions among high school students for entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial ideas, and concepts for new businesses.

We also have several new courses: one is called Creativity and Innovative Thinking where people who are involved in design thinking and creativity for a living, teach the topic. We also have a course on the culture and society of Japan, which is tied to a 10-day faculty-led visit to Tokyo and Kyoto, which is very fascinating and very impactful. We just created a minor in Arts Management. This is for students who, on the creative side, need a background in business, and those students on the business side will get an understanding of how business is involved with the arts.

We have lots of dynamic things going on that I think enhance students’ abilities to think critically and analytically – which is very much a part of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition and the Catholic focus that the University has – which prepares them for what they will need to know in the business world. Companies are increasingly focused on ‘how can we make ourselves better, more resource efficient especially regarding sustainability’ and our students need to know that. We have a lot of things making the College of Business a very exciting place to come to; an exciting place to work; an exciting place to graduate from.

The Zembrodt Center of Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ZCEI) is very exciting; we have courses and programs in the ZCEI which ensure that students have opportunities to be entrepreneurs themselves, to link with other entrepreneurs, or to link with businesses.

We also work to get students into relationships with companies so that those who are looking for part time jobs, internships, co-ops, etc., have opportunities with major and smaller corporations in the area – nonprofits, for profits, international companies, local companies – all the way from P&G to Mazak to everything in between.

We have a lot of programs that support students and make sure that they have the background and support that they need. I know we’ve been successful, when a student hands their resume to a potential employer, and the potential employer says, ‘Oh, now this looks interesting; tell me about this: you took a class in creativity and innovative thinking; you minored/had a concentration in sustainability; you minored in entrepreneurship – how do you think you can use those skills inside of the corporation?’ That enhances the reputation of Thomas More where, even if a recruiter has not seen your resume, just knowing that you graduated from Thomas More they know to expect a level of quality. Our motto is, ‘If you’re serious about a career in business, you have to come here because we’re the ones who get it.’

The best thing to do is sit down and talk to an advisor or one of the student guides. We are more than happy to reach out to students who are in high school, students who are thinking of transferring, or adult students thinking of going back to school. We start with very basic straight forward questions: ‘What are your goals? What is it you want to achieve? What is your dream?’ Tell us what you want for yourself for the future and let us help you get there.

Another way is to look at our website, go to what you think you want to major in and look at those classes. If you don’t know, our administrator will put you in touch with the people you need to talk to. We are very interested in each student individually. Each student learns in different ways, learns at a different pace, needs support in a variety of ways. We’re here to help you reach your goals.

We are doing exciting things at the Plaster College of Business, and in this climate with talk about whether or not there’s value in a college education, my answer is that there are a variety of reasons why a college education is very important and should be one of your main goals. It has been proven, over and over again, that people who graduate with a college degree, over the length of their working lifetime, have salaries that are dramatically higher than those without a degree. A college degree, especially one from the Robert W. Plaster College of Business, focuses on the essential skills that you need to be successful in your life. What we’re trying to do is not only teach you what accounting is, what finance is, what economics is – we’re teaching you how to think.

When I talk to employers, I ask them, ‘What is it that you’re looking for when you hire someone? What is it that you’re looking for when you promote somebody to a managerial position? What are you looking for, in terms of personnel to guide the company to the future? The answer is that they want people who can think, people who can communicate. They want people who can take a leadership position, and yet understand what it means to be a team member. They want people who can find a problem and, as a team, address that problem, solve the problem, and communicate it to stakeholders. That’s what a Thomas More education does for you. As long as you live, you will be called upon to find problems (both personally and professionally) before they become a crisis and address those problems in a rational way where you’re looking at the data accumulated to determine what’s the most efficient way to solve that problem, and then review results as to whether or not you are correct or if you have to tweak the solution.

These are seriously important life skills and without them I can’t imagine being successful in anything that you do. Twenty or 30 years from now, students who are graduating will be working in fields that haven’t been invented yet, in jobs that don’t exist yet. The question, as educators, is what can we do to prepare students to succeed and to thrive? We teach you skills that are applicable no matter what you do.

Every faculty member at Thomas More has made a living as a member of the business community at some point or another. They’ve rolled up their sleeves and done it. When they come to the classroom, they’re telling you what it’s like in the real world; every faculty member cares deeply about students.

The three colleges: the St. Elizabeth College of Natural and Health Sciences, the College and Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, and the Robert W. Plaster College of Business work very closely and cooperatively with each other. The newly introduced arts management minor is a cooperation between the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences and the Robert W. Plaster College of Business. The concentration that we have in sustainability is a joint venture between the St. Elizabeth College of Natural and Health Sciences and the Robert W. Plaster College of Business. You work with the other areas of the University, shoulder-to-shoulder with people who are studying completely different things. You will understand diversity; you will understand the point of an education and the life skills that you need to succeed.